


A Bitter Pang

by RosingsPark



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 18:46:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosingsPark/pseuds/RosingsPark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gilbert breaks the news of little Joyce's death to Marilla. (Anne's House of Dreams)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bitter Pang

**Author's Note:**

> I've never published anything of my own before so this feels a little strange. I just read this part in the book, and though it happens a bit differently, I wanted some interaction between Gil and Marilla. This immediately popped into my head and demanded to be written.

His mind was blank as Gilbert walked towards the little parlour of their house of dreams. Oh, those dreams. They were all shattered into a thousand pieces. The steps of the narrow staircase had never before been so many. Every step was a torture, a knife driving into feet and he longed to turn around and run back upstairs to Anne, who remained confined to her bed, with her child in her arms. But someone had to tell their friends. They had been waiting for long, anxious hours, listening to a young woman screaming her heart out. They [i]deserved[/i] to know, and it was his duty as a husband to deliver the knews. His duty as a father. Had he the right to call himself a father now that his child had entered into the world dead? 

He found Marilla in the parlour, and Marilla only. Cornelia must have taken herself to the kitchen, knitting furiously to drown out her nerves, and Captain Jim, good old Captain Jim, had been walking about the flower beds of their little garden of dreams. Dreams now already far behind them. Marilla was looking nervously at Gog and Magog but turned swiftly as soon as she heard Gilbert coming into the room. Her face, for once in her life, betrayed her true feelings. Deep-felt concern for the happy little redhead she loved so much was clearly written on it. 

When she saw Gilbert enter, his face grey and old, she took a sharp intake of breath. "Anne..." she whispered, "Is she..?" It struck her for the first time that Gilbert wasn't that boy who pulled Anne's braids with an insulting "Carrots!" any longer. At any other moment being reminded of that particular matter would have made her smile, but the striking difference between that boy and this man before her deepened her concern. 

Gilbert managed to nod bravely. "She'll make it." 

Relief washed over Marilla. She was alright! Anne was alright! But at that same moment, the initial joy that Anne had made it through the night was replaced by a dread that suddenly crept up through her veins. It couldn't be... not for [i]them[/i]. It happened often enough. But it ought not happen to Anne and Gilbert. "Is it the child?" she managed to get out at last. 

The concern was so shamelessly reflected in her eyes that Gilbert dropped his head to look away, and remained so until his shoulders started shaking and he couldn't stifle a sob any longer. His body jerked up and down and Marilla, out of some instinct or other, took a step forward and pulled his head down on her shoulder, gripping his upper arms with her steady hands. A shudder went through her as he wept and once more she was reminded that, if fate had played its cards out differently for her, this young man crying on her shoulder could have been her own son. 

"There, there," she said as Gilbert wept bitterly and unashamedly, patting his back in her own awkward way. But even her words of comfort couldn't hide the catch in her voice as she spoke them, and the tears that threatened to spill onto her cheek. 

"It isn't fair," whispered Gilbert, barely audible through his sobs. "It isn't fair." 

Marilla steadied his head by leaning her own head against his, her hands grabbing him even tighter. For a moment, he really was that boy, and he really was her son. She felt the bitterest maternal pang in her heart and she thought of Anne upstairs. Happy, imaginative Anne, always telling stories with bright eyes and a smile on her face. Anne, now alone and worn out in her bed with her dead child. Gilbert crying on her shoulder. These two deserving young people, to be so cruelly woken up from their happy slumber.

"I know, my boy." she whispered into his hair. "I know."


End file.
